The Brief

Los Angeles remains on shaky financial ground with increased liability costs, overspending by city departments and revenue shortfalls forcing it to dip into its reserves, according to a financial report released Wednesday.

The annual report for the fiscal year that ended in June, from Los Angeles City Controller Kenneth Mejia, said the culmination of decades of “unstable budgeting” is seen and felt by Angelenos across the city “in crumbling infrastructure and deteriorating services.”

Additionally, short-term budget balancing over the past two years resulted in unpaid furlough days for city employees and the elimination of thousands of unfilled positions.

“The service impacts of those cuts are still hitting departments as they struggle to address growing needs with severely diminished capacities,” the report read.

Key takeaways

Here are some of the major points made in the report:

• The top area of overspending continued to be liability payments. Liability claims exceeded the budget by $199 million or 228%, totaling a record of $287 million for the year. The top three areas include police at $152 million, street services at $44 million and transportation at $20 million. 

• The top area of underspending was capital improvement projects. The city only spent $25 million (19%) of the $131 million budget.

• Salaries and employee benefits increased by $162.6 million (4.7%) compared to previous  years, primarily because of cost-of-living adjustments associated with labor agreements with civilian and sworn employee unions, sworn employee hiring, increased overtime usage and higher benefit and insurance premium costs. Property taxes, which represent 40.6% of general fund revenues, increased by 4.3%. Business tax revenue increased by 8.6%, while sales tax revenues declined by 2.2%

• The city had to make up $160 million in revenue shortfall by tapping the reserve fund, which dropped from $648 million two fiscal years ago to $402 million for fiscal year 2024-25. The reserve fund currently sits at 5.06% of the total general fund budget, according to a December financial status report from the city administrative officer — barely above the 5% minimum set by the City Council.

• Four ratings agencies, including S&P, Fitch, Moody’s and Kroll, have given the city a “negative outlook” over a variety of concerns including liability payments and damages from the Palisades Fire. A negative outlook indicates a heightened risk that a city’s credit rating may be downgraded within the next 12 to 18 months. L.A. still holds an Aa2 rating from Moody’s, which is considered a high grade.

The controller issued a series of recommendations, including shifting to a two-year instead of one-year budgeting process, more realistic revenue projections, and more revenue generation by growing the tax base (for example: implementing a vacancy tax or taxing rideshare/autonomous vehicles, not just raising the sales tax).

General fund challenges

Councilmember Eunisses Hernandez, a member of the city’s Budget and Finance Committee, said in the report that the city can’t keep relying on short-term fixes, while “structural deficits,” like ongoing budget shortfalls, grow.

She added that “years of draining reserves, soaring liability payouts, and underinvestment in infrastructure have left us in a perilous financial position that our communities are now forced to absorb.”

“We need transparent, multi-year budgeting rooted in long-term planning and fiscal responsibility,” Hernandez said.

Mejia said that although the city is halfway through its fiscal year, it continues to have general fund budget challenges.

“The current fiscal year’s budget assumes moderate revenue growth, however, the long-term impact of current economic activities on revenue growth remains unknown and revenue has been stable during the first half of the year.”

LA’s demographics

In addition to providing a financial picture, the report provided a demographic look at the city. L.A.’s population is 3.84 million, the average age is 37.5, the total school enrollment is 409,108 and the unemployment rate is 6%.

The city employs more than 50,000 workers, the metro L.A.’s GDP is $1.3 trillion (among the top 20 economies in the world), and LAX has 75 million passengers a year.

After reaching a tentative agreement with University of California negotiators Wednesday night, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Local 3299 has canceled a strike that was set to start at all campuses on Thursday.

Why it matters

The union represents some 40,000 service and hospital workers across the UC system. Members include custodians, food service workers, patient care assistants and hospital technicians. The workers— some of whom are parents of UC students — said their wages had failed to keep pace with inflation, and that they’d been priced out of local housing markets.

The backstory

AFSCME 3299 has been negotiating with UC for over two years. Prior to the looming open-ended strike, the union had staged a two-day strike and filed unfair labor practice charges with the Public Employment Relations Board, formally accusing the UC system of violating California labor law. UC disputed the charges.

What AFSCME said: “[We] have reached a tentative agreement ... that makes historic progress and delivers long-overdue security to the frontline service and patient care professionals who make UC run,” said Michael Avant, president of AFSCME Local 3299, in an email statement. “Under the terms agreed upon [last night] the lowest paid workers in the UC system will have won their largest wage increase ever and the most affordable healthcare rates at UC.”

What UC said: In an email statement, Missy Matella, UC’s associate vice president for systemwide employee and labor relations, said: “We’re glad to have reached an agreement with AFSCME that recognizes the important work these employees do every day ... This contract delivers meaningful pay increases and addresses some of the real affordability pressures our employees are facing, while allowing us to move forward together focused on UC’s mission of patient care, teaching and research.”

What's next

Union members will vote on ratification May 19-21. Union leaders are encouraging members to vote yes.

Editor's note: Julia Barajas is a part-time graduate student at UCLA Law.

This story first appeared on The LA Local.

Richard Choi spent much of the past nearly 37 years waking up at 3 a.m. to make it to Radio Korea in time to give the morning broadcast.

For years, Choi’s commute to the station on Wilshire Boulevard took only a few minutes from his home near Hancock Park, but when the station moved its main operations to La Palma in Orange County last December, he would have needed to wake up an hour earlier to make the drive.

“That just wasn’t realistic,” Choi said. “So I decided it was time to retire. If the office had stayed in Koreatown, I probably would have continued broadcasting.”

The move hasn’t sat well with some longtime listeners and former employees who saw the station as inseparable from Koreatown.

Choi, 78, added that several longtime employees left the news outlet rather than make the commute to Orange County.

By the time he retired last year, Choi was one of the station’s most recognizable voices, particularly during the 1992 L.A. civil unrest, when Korean immigrants across the city turned to Korean-language radio for updates and information.

When management first floated the idea of leaving Koreatown, Choi told them to reconsider. 

The station’s headquarters became such a fixture in the neighborhood that many in the Korean-speaking community referred to 3700 Wilshire Blvd as the “Radio Korea building,” and the area in front of it, the “Radio Korea lawn.”

Now, the large Radio Korea sign in big, white block letters are gone, with just a shadow of an imprint.

The company spent years searching for another space in Koreatown after landlord Jamison Properties notified tenants in the Wilshire building that they would eventually need to vacate, Radio Korea CEO Michael Kim said.

The developers plan to redevelop the commercial space into affordable housing.

Radio Korea looked at multiple sites, including one near Hancock Park, but repeatedly ran into issues involving parking and cost. 

“We wanted to stay in L.A. We really tried hard to stay, because of 1992 and all that,” Kim said. “If Jamison was going to renew our lease, we would’ve stayed.” 

He admitted, though, that he also believes the center of Southern California’s Korean community has been gradually shifting beyond L.A.

“I understand how people in L.A. might feel about this stuff,” Kim said. “But I noticed Koreatown was starting to become less and less Korean, and I started thinking, ‘Is Koreatown going to die?’ I certainly hope not, but what if it ends up like Chinatown, where all the Chinese people moved to the San Gabriel Valley?”

“We had to move. There is a good Korean community here,” he added.

Orange County now has two officially designated Koreatowns, one in Garden Grove that received city recognition in 2019, and another in Buena Park that was designated in 2023.

Radio Korea still operates a small satellite office in Koreatown, and Kim insists its reporting in L.A. remains the same.

“We’re not trying to abandon L.A.,” he said. “The only difference is that we are broadcasting from Orange County and not Los Angeles.”

The station’s role in 1992

For many Korean Americans, it is almost impossible to talk about Radio Korea without also talking about the 1992 unrest. The station became a critical source of information as chaos spread through Koreatown after the acquittal of the Los Angeles Police Department officers filmed beating Rodney King.

More than 2,000 Korean-owned businesses were damaged or destroyed during the unrest, according to some community estimates cited in the years since. 

Radio Korea executive director Richard Choi gestures at his Los Angeles studios in 1992.

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Nick Ut

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AP Photo

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“Radio Korea played a major role in helping the Korean community rebuild,” Choi said, “and the riots became the turning point that transformed the Korean community into true Korean Americans. Before that, people came here chasing the vague idea of the ‘American Dream.’ People suffered and worked endlessly, but after the riots, they realized that the lives they had been living in America were not truly immigrant lives in the full sense.”

At the time, many Korean immigrants spoke limited English and relied heavily on Korean-language media for information. The radio station became an emergency information network as Koreatown residents felt left without police protection during the unrest.

Choi and other broadcasters remained on air through the night taking calls from neighbors reporting everything unfolding across the city.

Younger staff members leaned on Choi, who had already spent nearly two decades living in L.A. by then. According to station accounts, Choi sometimes stayed on air for more than 20 hours a day during the height of the unrest.

Yong-ho Kim started working in Radio Korea’s advertising department a month after immigrating to the United States in February 1990, two years before the unrest. That time still remains vivid in his memory. 

“My oldest child was only two years old,” Kim said. “I heard helicopters overhead, saw fires everywhere, heard looting and gunshots through the night. I was terrified.” 

He remained hunkered down at the station for several days, which at the time operated out of a building near Alvarado Street and Olympic Boulevard. 

The advertising department was removed from the station’s editorial side, but he said everyone at Radio Korea pitched in during the unrest. He eventually left the station and went into the restaurant business, opening Arado Japanese Restaurant in 1995. 

“Radio Korea was my first real job in America. At the time, I didn’t speak English well, didn’t fully understand the culture, and they still gave me an opportunity,” he said. “That experience shaped my business career afterward. Even now, I feel like Radio Korea runs through my blood. I love that station deeply.” 

Kim admitted he misses the in-person interaction at the station.

“In the past, when I recorded radio ads for my restaurant, I would go directly into the studio,” he said. “Now everything gets sent by phone.”

He added L.A. remains the “emotional center” of Korean American life, even as more Korean families move to Orange County and other suburbs.

“That’s why there’s an attachment to keeping Korean-language media rooted in Koreatown,” he said.

Radio Korea leaves Koreatown

Jamison, the largest commercial office landlord in Koreatown and one of the neighborhood’s most prolific developers, declined to comment on several questions related to the future of the Wilshire building where Radio Korea called home. It’s unclear when the company notified tenants on when they would need to leave or the timeline for the planned residential conversion.

Radio Korea ultimately purchased a building in La Palma, where Kim said expenses were lower at a difficult moment for Korean-language media outlets already dealing with declining advertising revenue and lingering financial struggles following the pandemic. 

The move is a bittersweet moment for the Korean community.

Hyepin Im was a graduate student at the University of Southern California during the unrest in 1992. The destruction in Koreatown and the experience of watching Korean American business owners struggle in its aftermath helped shape her later work in community advocacy. 

Wilshire Park Place once played host to Radio Korea in Koreatown. The building’s owners plan to repurpose the site into housing.

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Brian Feinzimer

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The LA Local

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Ethnic media organizations depend heavily on physical relationships inside the communities they serve, Im said.

“The fact that they were here in 1992 made a difference,” Im said. “I think the lack of their presence here will be a loss to the community.” 

Im, whose nonprofit work with Faith and Community Empowerment has focused for decades on immigrant and underserved communities in LA, argued that L.A. still carries unique weight within Korean communities nationally, even as Korean populations continue growing in Orange County and elsewhere.

“I could recognize that perhaps in Orange County, some of the things that I could see why they may choose there is a lot more Korean leadership in politics,” she said. “And as such, just like the Chinese community moved to the San Gabriel Valley from Chinatown, perhaps there is going to be a shift that is happening.” 

“I think proximity is always important and I would say it’s still what happens in L.A. that impacts the rest of the country, especially the Korean community,” she added. 

For Choi, Koreatown is inseparable from Radio Korea and the station’s role during the unrest, which pushed many Korean immigrants to engage more deeply with American civic and political life.

“No matter how many Koreans move to Orange County,” Choi said, “the symbolic center of the Korean community is still Koreatown.” 

Topline:

Why it matters: In Los Angeles, you can't get more local than a Tommy's Burger. Consuming the smothered burger — its signature beanless chili dripping through the to-go wrapper — is a rite of passage for many. Eight decades in, the original stand is still standing at Beverly and Rampart.

The details: Friday, noon to 8 p.m. only, you can get 80-cent chili cheeseburgers (limit three per person) at all Southern California and Nevada locations. The anniversary celebration at the original downtown L.A. location includes the Belmont High School Marching Band, a DJ and a resolution from Assemblymember Mark Gonzalez , who represents the area, honoring 80 years of business in California.

The backstory: Tommy Koulax opened the original stand at Beverly and Rampart in 1946. This week, the iconic SoCal chain, which spawned many competitors, celebrates 80 years across all 32 of its locations — and you're invited. Daughter Cynthia Koulax will be greeting the community Friday, alongside CEO Dawna Bernal and CFO Richard Hicks.

A group of volunteers in Hollywood say they are conducting their own homeless count in the area next week because they don't trust the results of the official regional one.

The effort is organized by Hollywood 4WRD, a coalition of nonprofit service providers, businesses and residents. About 60 volunteers, mostly staff from Hollywood service provider organizations, are expected to fan out across 30 census tracts Tuesday.

Results will be made public a week later May 27, according to organizers.

The neighborhood count comes amid growing questions about the accuracy of the official regional homeless tally.

The city of L.A.'s unhoused population decreased by 5.5% between 2023 and 2025, according to official estimates from the annual count conducted by the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, or LAHSA. But a 2025 analysis by the RAND Corporation found that LAHSA undercounted people living outside in certain areas, including Hollywood.

Hollywood 4WRD executive director Brittney Weissman said the organization’s own experience volunteering for the LAHSA count this year raised even more questions about accuracy.

“Our experience was so confounding, perplexing and inefficient that we've been really deeply questioning the value, utility and accuracy of the count for a couple of years now,” Weissman said.

Organizers said the Hollywood count will use methodology developed by RAND researchers, who ran their own professional counts in Hollywood, Skid Row and Venice from 2021 until earlier this year.

That research effort, known as LA LEADS, has since lost funding.

“If LA LEADS was continuously funded into the future, we would not be doing this effort,” Weissman said. "Because it's no longer funded, we felt we needed to take our own initiative to understand the lay of the land here.”

What's at stake?

More than $300 million in federal and county dollars are allocated annually based on homeless count results. That includes $220 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and nearly $100 million from L.A. County's Measure A sales tax.

LAHSA conducted its most recent official homeless count in January. The agency said it hopes to release the results this summer but has not confirmed a release date.

In her reelection campaign, L.A. Mayor Karen Bass takes credit for reducing homelessness in the city. The official count underpinning her claim is the same one RAND found was missing nearly a third of unsheltered people in key neighborhoods.

Weissman said Hollywood service providers need to know now whether more people are living in vehicles or sleeping outside, so they can adjust how they're doing outreach.

Organizers timed the May 27 release to influence budget negotiations still underway at City Hall, according to Weissman.

She noted that Bass' proposed budget does not include funding for Safe Parking LA, a program that allows unhoused Angelenos to live legally in their vehicles within sanctioned parking lots.

"If we find that vehicular homelessness is on the rise here and we need it badly, this gives us evidence with which to petition decisionmakers for that resource in our community," she said.

What RAND found

RAND's LA LEADS project ran bimonthly counts in Hollywood, Skid Row and Venice from 2021 until this January.

Comparing LAHSA’s official counts to its own, a RAND report found the 2025 homeless count captured 68% of the unsheltered population across those three neighborhoods.

RAND found the population of unsheltered people in Hollywood dropped 49% in 2024, a decline it linked to the city’s Inside Safe program. But the official LAHSA count still captured only 81% of what RAND found in the neighborhood.

The people being missed were mostly vehicle dwellers and “rough sleepers” — people living with no shelter, RAND said.

Skid Row's official tally fared worse, capturing 61% of what RAND found there.

Hollywood 4WRD said its methodology follows RAND’s LA LEADS methodology, which the group said is more precise than LAHSA’s approach.

Each census tract will be covered by at least two independent volunteers, a quality-control measure that helps organizers flag areas that might need to be recounted.

Volunteers will also use pens and paper to record their observations, instead of a mobile app. LAHSA has used an app for its count since 2022 and has acknowledged repeated technical problems with it.

The unofficial homeless count this month is limited to Hollywood, unlike LAHSA's countywide effort. Weissman said she hopes the effort will encourage other neighborhoods to check their own local data.